This week the new chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board, Ijaz Butt, explained why he was standing by the national coach, Geoff Lawson: "We will suffer a huge financial loss if we terminate his contract now. Since we cannot afford a heavy loss, we will continue with him."

As non-resonant endorsements go this is right up there with that of Jesús Gil y Gil, the legendary president of Atlético Madrid, who once observed of his latest managerial appointment: "It may be that he is not the right man for the task but, when all the other trains have left the station, you can only take the one that is left."

Gil boarded the last train to Boot Hill in 2004. Two years earlier he had brought the curtain down on a career so colourful you needed to wear dark glasses to look at it. Once convicted of fraud, he also once threatened to shoot some of his players. "I mean it, some of them don't deserve to live," the man dubbed Mad Max by one his former employees, Ron Atkinson, ranted on Spanish radio. When the presenter reminded Gil that he had recently had bypass surgery and advised him to calm down, he retorted: "I'm sick of people telling me to relax. They can stick my heart up their arses." That is surely one of sport's most enduring images.

Those of us who like our sports administrators mean and wacky will be hoping Butt lives up to the surly promise of his opening remarks, because there is a gap in the market since Gil left the building. The old guard are oddly reticent. Don King appears tongue-tied; Sepp Blatter has fallen silent (though that is probably only because, like a bluebottle, he is too busy crapping on someone's cake to make a noise); and Freddy Shepherd has departed.

Those who might have stepped into the breach have proved disappointing. Thaksin Shinawatra, a man who looked as if he might have what it took but turned out to be a man who took what he had, has sold up and Mike Ashley, who acquired a football club in much the same way some blokes of a certain age get their navel pierced and send inappropriate emails to a young female co-worker, seems to have woken up to a realisation that he may have made a bit of an arse of himself. He is now trying to return to a world of easy-fit slacks and washing the car on Sunday morning.

This is not so surprising, really. It is not easy being a crazed sports administrator. Most burn out faster than a colour-blind electrician. At one time we had high hopes for Luciano Gaucci, president of Perugia. In March 2000 Gaucci burst on to the scene in a Hamiltonesque manner by threatening to lock his squad in their training complex until the end of the season if they failed to beat Venezia. The sacking of the striker Ahn Jung-hwan after the South Korean's goal dumped Italy out of the 2002 World Cup also showed rich potential. "When Ahn arrived he was like a little lost goat who didn't even have the money to buy a sandwich," Gaucci wailed, calling to mind Gil's complaint that Real Madrid's Mexican striker Hugo Sanchez was "as welcome in Spain as a piranha fish in a bidet".

A year later Gaucci signed Hanna Ljunberg, at that time the best woman player on the planet, and pledged to play her in Serie A. When doubts were expressed over the effect the Swede might have in the dressing room, the president responded: "We are in 2003. Men go to discotheques and walk naked on the beach."

A week after that Gaucci snapped up Saadi al-Gadafy, a 30-year-old inside forward, civil engineer and son of the Libyan dictator. "This is not a publicity stunt. This is about football, full stop," he said. Gadafy prepared for Italy's top flight with an intensive fitness programme under the watchful eye of the disgraced Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson. He was soon banned, after testing positive for nandrolone.

This all offered hope of a fruitful career of baroque madness. For a while I even entertained the idea that Gaucci might one day outstrip Gil and prove a worthy successor to the wackiest administrator of all, Bill Veeck of the St Louis Browns baseball team. Veeck infamously fielded the 3ft 7in Eddie Gaedel in his starting line-up and once sparked a riot in Chicago by inviting fans on to the field to destroy disco records.

Sadly it was not to be. In 2005 Perugia went belly up, the Italian government issued a warrant for Gaucci's arrest, for his part in an alleged €35m fraud, and the man who once described George W Bush as "a truly exquisite person" fled to the Dominican Republic.

Gil, during his time in charge of Atlético, sacked a remarkable 39 managers, including 15 in one credulity-twanging three-month burst; tried to withdraw his team from all league fixtures against Real Madrid; celebrated Atlético's 1996 league and cup double by parading through the Spanish capital astride an elephant; and gave visiting referees gifts of lingerie. In a theological mood he once commented: "I am Jesús Gil, not Jesus Christ."

Whether Ijaz Butt proves to be another Jesús Gil or a false messiah remains to be seen. After such an extraordinary opening, however, it will be worth keeping an eye on him and hoping for the worst.